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Commentary: Negative campaigning and race

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 5, 2012 - For a brief period, we are free of political advertising on television. For months, we have been inundated with negative advertisements that tarred candidates for their own faults or for guilt by association.

Democrats and Republicans alike played this game, which demeans public officeholders and is not likely to restore support for government. It all began with the infamous daisy ad against Barry Goldwater in 1964. Although only shown once, it had lingering impact. And it grew with the rise of political consultants, which University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato described in 1981. Their influence on campaigns continues unabated and a chief weapon in their arsenal is the negative ad.

As Sabato noted, “In politics, negative advertising is believed to be more attention grabbing and exciting and to be particularly effective against incumbents.” It works, hence it is used.

The most insidious form of negative advertising carries racial overtones. Such ads play to particular biases of, most often, white voters.

Many examples can be cited:

In 1983, a black congressman, Harold Washington, won Chicago’s Democratic mayoral primary when the white vote divided between Jane Byrne and Richard M. Daley. In the general election, Washington was opposed by Republican Bernard Epton, who enjoyed the support of a number of white Democratic officials. Epton’s commercial was “vote Epton before it’s too late,” playing to white fears.

In 1988, a group supporting George H.W. Bush put the Willie Horton ad on the air. It linked his opponent, Michael Dukakis, to an African American who had been convicted of murder and who robbed and assaulted two others while on a furlough from prison.

Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy and silent majority, echoed by Ronald Reagan, tried to draw votes from white Democrats alienated by civil rights and other 1960s movements.

Jesse Helms overcame a black rival for his Senate seat by depicting whites losing jobs to affirmative action in his ads.

Racial campaigning is not a one-way street. Some black mayoral candidates across the country have sought the overwhelming support of members of their racial group in seeking office. This was not necessarily done with television advertising but in invocations from the pulpit, in black newspapers, and in flyers hand-delivered in select neighborhoods.

For the first time in 12 years, St. Louis looks forward to a hard-fought mayoral contest. The March primary pits incumbent Francis Slay against Lewis Reed, president of the Board of Aldermen. It is a white-black contest. Slay ran against two black opponents in 2001 and his ads focused on making St. Louis a great city again and the programs needed to do just that. What about this time?

A St. Louis Public Radio report quoted Slay on playing the race card. That phrase, “playing the race card,” reflects the ads of Epton, Helms and Bush 41. It makes race or racism part of the debate and can pander to the electorate’s biases. Slay told KWMU, “I am concerned that my opponent will play the race card and otherwise be divisive in this campaign. I never have and won’t be involved in that kind of effort.” Reed said he would concentrate on jobs, not race.

With a city electorate almost evenly divided racially, a campaign in St. Louis certainly could be conducted that would try to use race as a divider. Turnout is likely to be key, and race could be a motivator.

Slay’s remarks may be an attempt to dilute that factor early on. But will it? It will be interesting to see how ads and literature are framed in the weeks to come. In St. Louis, voters in the integrated central corridor often are key to victory. Conventional wisdom says these voters are turned off by blatant, negative use of race. When Freeman Bosley Jr. was elected mayor in 1993, his television ad mentioned needing white and black keys to play the Star Spangled Banner and he received 42 percent of the white vote in the corridor.

Lana Stein is emeritus professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She is the author of several books and journal articles about urban politics, political behavior and bureaucracy.